Escolar Documentos
Profissional Documentos
Cultura Documentos
Christianae
Vigiliae Christianae 64 (2010) 160-188
brill.nl/vc
Abstract
The article explores the prole, context and consequences of Christianitys self denition as a philosophy in the ancient world. It proposes a distinction between, on the
one hand, the practice of teaching philosophy in small Christian schools, and, on the
other hand, an intellectual discourse that proclaimed Christianity as the true and superior philosophy. It is argued that Christianitys self denition as a philosophy should
not be viewed as merely an accommodation to an intellectual fashion. It is shown how
Christianity could be understood and practised as a philosophy in the ancient sense of
the word. However, as a philosophical practice Christianity underwent a transformation in the 4th century which prevented the emergence of a late antique Christian
scholasticism and gave rise to new combinations of Christianity and non-Christian
philosophy.
Keywords
Augustine, Origen, philosophy, Christian schools, Platonism, Gnosticism
I
In 232 or 233, Theodore, a young man from Neocaesarea (province of
Pontus in Asia Minor) arrived in Caesarea, the capital of the province of
Palestine. Some time before, the governor of Palestine had appointed Theodores future brother-in-law as his counsellor and ordered him to Caesarea.1 Theodore had travelled to Caesarea in the company of his sister, his
1)
This is the revised text of an evening lecture held at the International Patristic Conference in Oxford on August 8th, 2007. For questions, comments and the occasional reference I am grateful to the audience and particularly to the chairman on that evening,
Koninklijke Brill NV, Leiden, 2010
DOI: 10.1163/157007209X453331
161
Professor Richard Sorabji, and to the editors of Vigiliae Christianae.The details of the
following account are sifted from the Thanksgiving Address of Gregory the Wonderworker
for his teacher Origen. For the Address I use H. Crouzels edition: Grgoire le Thaumaturge,
Remerciement Origne; la lettre d Origne Grgoire. Texte grec, introduction, traduction
et notes par Henri Crouzel S.J., Sources Chrtiennes 148 (Paris 1969). See Gregory, Address
V, 48-72.
2)
See F. Millar, The Roman Coloniae of the Near East: A Study of Cultural Relations, in:
H. Solin / M. Kajava (eds), Roman Eastern Policy and Other Studies (Helsinki 1990) 7-57:
16-17. See also: L.J. Hall, Roman Berytus. Beirut in Late Antiquity (London 2004).
3)
Eusebius of Caesarea, h.e. 6, 30. I see no need to follow P. Nautin, Origne. Sa vie et son
oeuvre (Paris 1977), 83-85, and question the attribution of the Address to Gregory the
Wonderworker.
162
themselves, then the truly good things human beings should pursue and the truly
bad things they should avoid . . .4
Theodore was moved by this direct appeal to realize his true rational self
but he still hesitated. In the end he had to yield to Origens eloquent ardour
andmost importantlyto his oer of a philosophical friendship:
As if a spark had hit our soul right in the centre, the deep love for this holy and
most desirable word (. . .) and for this friendly man, its herold, was lit and set
ablaze . . .
Wounded by his love I was persuaded to neglect all business, all plans for study
that seemed to be so tting for me, yes, even the study of my beautiful laws, and
also my birth place and the relatives, those who are here and those with whom we
had travelled. There was only one thing left which I loved and desired: Philosophy
and the one who introduced me to it, this divine man.6
4)
5)
6)
163
7)
164
4th century. Paul Zanker12 and Bjrn Ewald13 have more recently explored
this aspect of the cult of learning.
Despite the social prestige of philosophy, its institutional context tended
to be rather weak and volatile: Schools were usually small, often only a
master and a handful of disciples. In some schools an inner circle of serious
students (such as Theodore) distinguished itself from a larger circle of
occasional hearers. Most schools did not survive the death of their head.
Most teachers of philosophy were paid for neither by a city nor by the
emperor; ratherif they did not have some private income or pursued
another profession besides (such as grammarian, rhetor, or physician, for
example)they were dependent on rich sponsors and on the contributions of their well to do disciples. Money was but rarely mentionedit
would have dispelled the impression of relentless high-mindedness the
practitioners of ancient philosophy were keen to cultivate. In this respect,
too, Theodores speech sticks to the conventions. Origens career shows the
various options for a ancient philosopher to support himself: After his
well-to-do father had died in a persecution when he was still seventeen, a
rich Christian lady apparently took him into her house whereor so Eusebius of Caesarea likes to emphasizehe had to put up with the presence
of a Antiochene heretic called Paul.14 Later on he had supported himself by
doubling as a teacher of grammatikoi logoi, before selling his library in
order to be paid a regular stipend. Origens school in Caesarea was probably supported by a certain Ambrose, a rich patron who had once belonged
to the followers of the second century Gnostic Valentinus.15
If philosophy as a discipline lacked a sharply dened role and an agreed
content in the fragmented and socially stratied educational system of the
Roman Empire, this defect was somewhat compensated for by the attempts
of some philosophical schools to establish ambitious curricula. Theodore
tells us how he was lead through successive stages of a strictly prescribed
course of study.
12)
P. Zanker, The Mask of Socrates. The Image of the Intellectual in Antiquity (Berkeley etc.
1995) 267-330.
13)
B.C. Ewald, Der Philosoph als Leitbild. Ikonographische Untersuchungen an rmischen
Sarkophagreliefs (Mainz 1999).
14)
Eusebius, h.e. 6,2,13.Lucian of Samosata, in his famous satire On Salaried Posts in
Great Houses, evokes with evident relish the indignities which those had to suer who were
kept by the rich as their domestic philosophers.
15)
Eusebius, h.e. 6,2,15; 6,3,8-9; 6,18,1; 6,23,1; Suda, ed. Adler, vol. III, 621,13-25. See
P. Nautin, Lettres et crivains chrtiens de II e et IIIe sicles (Paris 1961) 250-253.
165
166
167
25)
168
II
The Address oers a rare window on the implementation of arguably one
of the most ambitious intellectual projects of Antiquity: to conceive of
Christianity as the new, and the uniquely true philosophy.
To speak about Ancient Christianitys self denition as a philosophy is
to enter a particularly dicult and complex debate. Some scholars explore
the scope and meaning of this self denition by collecting those passages
from the church fathers where Christianity is dened as the true philosophy. For the Greek Fathers we are still admirably served by the thoroughgoing study of Anne-Marie Malingrey.30 A purely lexicographical approach,
however, has clearly its severe limitationsthe word philosophia covers
a whole range of meanings. And Origen, for example,to judge from
the extant remains of his oeuvreby and large prefers to apply the term
philosophia to the traditional Greek schools of philosophy.31
For some scholars, Ancient Christianitys self denition as a philosophy expresses something important about the very essence of Ancient
Christianity.
About a hundred years ago, Adolf v Harnack developed his inuential
and complex view of ancient Christianity as a complexio oppositiorum, a
syncretistic religion that embraced all the religious tendencies and antagonisms of the ancient world in their most highly developed form.32 Taking
his cue from F.D.E. Schleiermacher, Harnack dened Ancient Christianity
as religion itself ; compared to Christianity all the other cults of the
Roman Empire represented only poor and half developed versions of religion. Harnack pointed out that for the apologists, as for Clement of Alexandria and Origen, Christianity is at the same time a divine revelation and
pure reason, the true philosophy. These Christian teachers, propagating a
kind of Christian enlightenment, believed that the whole contents of
Christianity can be reconstructed by reason. They did so by identifying the
Logos, the active principle of the world, of reason and of ethics, with a
historic person, with Jesus Christ.
30)
A.-M. Malingrey, Philosophia. tude dun groupe des mots dans la littrature grecque des
Prsocratiques au IV e sicle aprs J.-C. (Paris 1961).
31)
Ibidem, 159-184.
32)
For the following sketch of Harnacks position I conate ideas culled from: A. Harnack,
Die Mission und Ausbreitung des Christentums (Leipzig 41924) 327-328; Lehrbuch der
Dogmengeschichte. Erster Band: Die Entstehung des kirchlichen Dogmas, Tbingen 41909 =
Darmstadt 1964) 496-550; Das Wesen des Christentums, Reprint (Gtersloh 1977) 115-130.
169
34)
170
III
I would like to suggest that Origens schools of Christian philosophy rst
in Alexandria and then in Caesarea, were only the latest and arguably most
important in a line of Christian schools and Christian teachers reaching
back for more than 100 years to the beginning of the 2nd century.36 I have
argued in several publications that some of those Christian theologians
35)
Pierre Hadot, Quest-ce que cest la philosophie antique, 381-387.More recently Theo
Kobusch, surveying the whole history of Western philosophy, has claimed that ancient
Christian philosophy developed a metaphysics of the inner man or a practical metaphysics and in this way exercised an enormous inuence on the whole of Western philosophy.
(Christliche Philosophie. Die Entdeckung der Subjektivitt (Darmstadt 2006).)
36)
For these schools, see U. Neymeyr, Die christlichen Lehrer im zweiten Jahrhundert. Ihre
Lehrttigkeit, ihr Selbstverstndnis und ihre Geschichte (Vigiliae Christianae Supplements 4;
LeidenKln 1989).
171
172
few if any Christian teachers in the 2nd century will have attracted pupils
with Theodores probable social background. There was erce disagreement between Christian schools and between master and disciples of the
same school.
Debate and Disagreement, however, is exactly what one would expect to
nd in ancient schools of philosophy. Hilary Armstrong, in a very perceptive paper presented at the International Patristic Conference of 1975,
pointed out that for all their acceptance of the authority of Pythagoras,
Plato or Aristotle, the philosophical masters of the ancient schools felt free
to criticise their teachers. Armstrong wrote:
In studying any philosophical school of our period, especially the Platonic, which
was most important and about which we know most, we discover that though the
authority of the Founder was absolute, the authority of school tradition was very
slight indeed. Ancient philosophical traditionalism was not scholastic in any
very meaningful sense of the word.43
Our very fragmentary sources reveal little about the inner life and the practices of teaching and learning in the 2nd century schools of Christian philosophy in Rome, Alexandria or elsewhere. Occasionally we can catch a
glimpse of this inner life: Irenaeus of Lyon, for example, informs us that
the Roman Carpocratians had pictures or statues of Jesus which they venerated and crowned with wreaths alongside pictures of Pythagoras, Plato
and Aristotle. For the Carpocratians Jesus was clearly an exceptionally wise
man. Like Pythagoras, Plato and Aristotle, Jesus had had a strong and pure
soul that had kept a memory of those ideas it had contemplated before his
bodily existence.44 Like other philosophical schools, the Roman Carpocratians apparently celebrated their philosopher-heroes.45
43)
H.A. Armstrong, Pagan and Christian Traditionalism in the First Three Centuries, in:
Idem, Hellenic and Christian Studies (London 1990) IX, 425. See also G. Fowden, The
Platonist Philosopher and His Circle in Late Antiquity, in: Philosophia 7 (1977) 359-383.
For a comparison of the doctrinal discontinuities in the Platonic and Valentinian schools,
see C. Markschies, Valentinus Gnosticus? (Tbingen 1992) 396.
44)
Irenaeus, haer. 1,25,1. See my comments: W. Lhr, Karpokratianisches, in: Vigiliae
Christianae 49 (1995) 23-48: 24-26.
45)
This is not to revive Wilamowitz outdated view that ancient philosophical schools
were in fact religious associations (thiasoi), see G.W. Most, Philosophy and Religion, in:
D. Sedley (ed.), The Cambridge Companion to Greek and Roman Philosophy (Cambridge
2003) 300-322: 320.
173
If evidence about the inner life of the Christian schools is hard to come
by, the same, however, is by and large also true for the Platonic and
other schools of the 2nd century.46 We have to wait for the 3rd century in
order to be oered a more vivid and detailed picture of the inner life
of philosophical schools: Theodore and Porphyry celebrate and present
their teachers Origen and Plotinus.47 And this is no accident. Origen and
Plotinus each, in their dierent ways, could claim to have made a bold and
fresh start in, respectively, Christian and Platonic philosophy. For their
close disciples, each of them represented a new and charismatic type of
philosopher.
The fragmentary evidence of the 2nd century sources and the eloquent
testimony of Theodores Address should, however, suce to dispel the suspicion that any resemblance between these Christian schools and their
contemporary Stoic, Epicurean or Platonic counterparts may be due merely
to heresiological stereotyping. For example, extant fragments of Valentinus
and Basilides show that these two teachersjust like their pagan counterpartsdiscussed with reference to the bible the question of how the soul
is puried, of how ones passions can be mastered.48 Isidore, the son and
disciple of Basilides, adapted a spiritual exercise from one of the letters of
Epicurus.49 Or take Origen, almost a century later. The very rst sentence
of Origens opus magnum Peri Archn reads thus:
All who believe and are convinced that the grace and the truth came by Jesus
Christ (John 1,17), and who know Christ to be the truth (in accordance with his
own saying, I am the truth/ John 14,6), receive the knowledge which calls men to
lead a good and happy life (ad bene beateque vivendum) from no other source but
the very words and teaching of Christ.50
46)
But see M.-L. Lakmann, Der Platoniker Tauros in der Darstellung des Aulus Gellius, Philosophia Antiqua 63 (Leiden / New York 1995).
47)
Apart from the Life of Plotinus Porphyry also wrote a Life of Pythagoras which formed
part of his Philosophical History (for the fragments of the Life of Pythagoras, see E. des
Places (d.), Vie de Pyhagore, Lettre Marcella, CUFr (Paris 1982); for the few remnants of
other books of the Philosophical History, see A. Smith, Porphyrius. Fragments, BSGRT
(Leipzig 1993) 220-249. See now M. Zambon, Porrio biografo di Filoso, in: A. Monaci
Castagno (ed.), La biograa di Origene fra storia e agiograa Biblioteca di Adamantius 1
(Villa Verrucchio 2004) 117-142.
48)
Clement of Alexandria, str. 112,1-114,6.
49)
Clement of Alexandria, str. 3,1,1-3,2. See W. Lhr, Basilides und seine Schule (Tbingen
1996) 101-122.
50)
Origenes, On First Principles 1,1 (transl. G.W. Butterworth, modied).
174
For Origen, then, Jesus Christ is a wise master of salvic truth in the philosophical sense. The words of Christboth of the pre-existent Christ and
the incarnate Christteach men how to practise a life that leads to the
goal of eudaimonia. Scripture can be coherently read and interpreted as
containing philosophical wisdom. If one takes seriously the rst sentence
of Origens Peri Archn one will not assume that Origens prodigious output as a highly competent exegete of scripture is somehow at odds with his
identity as a Christian philosopher. As has been observed by Pierre Hadot
and other scholars, it is precisely the exegesis of authoritative scripture that
forms the core of the philosophical curriculum in the pagan schools of the
second and later centuries. The philosophical master taught philosophy
mainly by commenting on the writings of the old masters and by answering questions of the disciples. In the Christian schools, the works of Plato,
Aristotle or Chrysippus were replaced by the Jewish bible, the gospels and
the letters of Paul. For example, whereas the Platonists explained the
Timaios, a Christian school teacher may have explained the rst chapter of
the book of Genesis.51 Of course, as a Stoic philosopher may occasionally
also read a treatise of Aristotle with his disciples, a Christian philosopher
may have also commented on Plato or other philosophers.
For Christianity, the legacy of this early exegetical work of the Christian
schools was invaluable. In the 2nd century the Alexandrian teacher Basilides and the Valentinian Herakleon wrote the rst commentaries on the
gospels. Like other professional philosophers Origen had worked as a
grammarian and was therefore well versed in textual criticism and philology. With his Hexapla he realized a philological project whose scope and
ambition easily surpassed the earlier work of Alexandrian Homer philology. Origens impressive philological and exegetical work was continued by
his disciple Pamphilus and by Pamphilus disciple Eusebius of Caesarea.
Third century Platonists like Longinus or Porphyry also excelled in philological and historical work. Porphyry wrote a Philosophical History whose
rst part contained a discussion of chronology.52 And of course, Porphyry
accomplished the scholarly feat of correctly determining the date of the
book of Daniel. Perhaps one could say that the 3rd century saw a ourishing of philosophical philologya consequence of the exegetical turn the
philosophical schools had taken since the 2nd century.
51)
175
It is my impression that these and other resemblances between the intellectual practices of the Christian schools of philosophy and their pagan
counterparts are often not taken seriously enough and are explained in
terms of a more or less supercial accommodation. In the second century,
it is said, Christianity began to address its message to the tiny educated
elite. In doing so, Christianity cast itself as a philosophy, assumed so to say,
the trappings of a philosophy, tried to speak in terms and concepts that
translated the alien and complex language of the bible into an idiom an
educated Roman or Greek could understand. Ulrich Neymeyr, in his ne
monograph Die christlichen Lehrer im zweiten Jahrhundert. Ihre Lehrttigkeit, ihr Selbstverstndnis und ihre Geschichte53 concedes that Christian
teachers like Justin or Clement of Alexandria have so much in common
with contemporary teachers of philosophy that they are almost indistinguishable from them.54 And yet Neymeyr tries to look for characteristic
dierences between these two groups: Christian teachers were dierent, he
claims, because they took no money but hoped for eternal rewards instead,
because they wrote more, because they were more engaged in protreptic
exhortation, because they wanted to lead their disciples to salvation,
because they conceived of themselves as charismatics.
It is doubtful whether this list of distinguishing characteristics would
equally apply to all teachers of Christian philosophy. The spectrum
of Christian teachers and schools, their attitudes and their practices was
probably as broad and as varied as that of pagan teachers and schools. It
is not always clear what scholars who determine the relation between
2nd century Christianity and philosophy as an accommodation precisely
mean to say.
If they wish to suggest that some of the most fertile minds of 2nd and
3rd century Christianity were engaged in a vast exercise of intellectual
mimicry, they are, I believe, quite wrong. If, alternatively, they wish to suggest that the project of teaching Christianity as a philosophy was intrinsically impossible (because Christianity is a religion and therefore something
essentially dierent from philosophy), they make, in eect, a philosophical
or theological, not a historical, judgement.
53)
54)
Leiden 1989.
Neymeyr, Die christlichen Lehrer (Leiden 1989), 227-228.
176
IV
To conceive of Christianity as a philosophy was an intellectual project that
needed careful positioning in its contemporary intellectual environment.
First of all, with this self denition, 2nd century Christianity entered
an already very crowded market. Christian philosophy had to compete
with other schools of philosophy (Stoics, Platonists, Peripatetics and
Epicureans) which oered both theoretical knowledge and a perspective
on life as a whole, a philosophical way of life. Various intellectual strategies
were devised to dene ones own position with regard to this plurality of
philosophies: Justin Martyr, for example, claimed that originally, before
the emergence of various schools that contradicted each other, philosophy
had been a gift from heaven, had been one and undivided.55 Justin distinguishes between so to say, the original intention of philosophythe one
and undivided search for truthand its betrayal and adulteration by the
scholasticism of various schools that no longer care about the truth but
only defend their own prestige and reputation. Justin here rehearses an
anti-scholastic argument that could also be found in the pagan schools
of philosophy. Christian philosophy, the only true philosophy, Justin
claimed, recovers the ancient and unitary truth which is to be found already
in the OT prophets and then in the teaching of Jesus Christ. Christ is
the beginning and end of the search for truth that is the hallmark of true
philosophy.56
Justin, however, was keenly aware of the fact that the plurality of the
pagan schools of philosophy was only mirrored by the plurality of the
Christian schools. It was Justin who invented heresiologythe denition,
classication and denunciation of Christian dierence, a new form of
knowledge with a potent legacy for the Christianity of later centuries. Origens position towards the plurality of philosophical schools and Christian
sects was considerable more complex than Justins. Responding to Celsus,
Origen writes:
Any teaching which has had a serious origin, and is benecial to life, has caused
dierent sects.57
55)
177
In his school in Caesarea Origen had incorporated the plurality of philosophical schools into his curriculum. He introduced his disciples to the
writings of the various Greek philosophers and poetsexcept those of the
atheists (i.e. the Atomists or the Epicureans).58 However, Origen enjoined
his disciples not to pass premature judgements on the various philosophical views and systems. In his Address Theodore spells out the rationale of
this critical epoch: The souls of the disciples should not be seduced by the
rhetoric and the specious sophisms of various schools.59 Otherwise they
would no longer be open to arguments, they would fall prey to irrationality and thus miss the very goal of a philosophical education. For Theodore,
then, it is not so much the plurality of schools that endangers the philosophical project, but their irrational dogmatism. Jaap Mansfeld has pointed
out that the same kind of psychagogic eclecticism can be found in Galen:
On the hand the great philosopher physician wanted his students to
become acquainted with the teaching of all the principal sects in medicine.
On the other hand he wished his students to free themselves from the
irrational passions which are inevitably bound up with the feelings of loyalty to a particular school, or sect.60 Of course, Origens crash course in
various philosophies was also simply useful; it introduced Theodorewho
until then had been uninterested in philosophy61to a whole range of
philosophical views. To some extent, then, the eclecticism of Origens curriculum integrated the fragmented philosophical spectrum of Hellenistic
philosophy. In this way Origen is able to underline his claim to overcome
and replace the spectrum of Greek philosophy and its divisions. The Neoplatonic schools tried to achieve the same by other means.
58)
178
62)
Michael Erler, Legitimation und Projektion: Die Weisheit der Alten im Platonismus
der Sptantike, in: D. Kuhn / H. Stahl (Hrsg), Die Gegenwart des Altertums. Formen
und Funktionen des Altertumsbezugs in den Hochkulturen der Alten Welt (Heidelberg 2001)
313-326.
63)
For perceptive remarks on the doctrinaire character of later Platonism, see M. Baltes,
Was ist antiker Platonismus?, in: Studia Patristica 24 (Leuven 1993) 233.
64)
See M.J. Edwards, Justins Logos and the Word of God, in: Journal of Early Christian
Studies 3,3 (1995) 261-280.
65)
Justin, 1 apol. 46.
179
180
were deeply engaged in theoretical debates about the details of their system. One of them, Ptolemy, wrote the famous Letter to Flora, which is in
eect an introduction (eisagog) to his system.72 Origen, sketching the outlines of his system in Peri Archn, repeatedly indicates those points where
further exploration and discussion is needed.73 The Valentinian system and
Origens system were the two most sophisticated attempts at creating a
theoretically coherent religious philosophy in the history of Ancient Christianity. It is no accident that these two systems were elaborated and rened
in a school context. Both schools invented a characteristic terminology.74
One could say, that for Ancient Christianity, the Christian schools of
the 2nd and 3rd century functioned as a kind of theological laboratory;
hereand this was already glimpsed by A.v. Harnack75a good deal of
the arguments and the terminology of the doctrinal debates of the 4th and
5th centuries was rst coined and tested.
V
When Augustine began to study rhetoric in Carthage, he and his parents
cherished the same ambition as Theodore and his family more than a century before Augustine wished to become an advocate in the law courts.76
With some luck, even high administrative oce (the governorship of a
small province) would not be out of reach. As is well known, when he was
18, during his rhetorical studies, Augustine came across Ciceros dialogue
Hortensiusa protreptic, an exhortation to study philosophy. Following
the exhortation of the Hortensius, Augustine turned rst to scripture, and
then, after a very frustrating failure to understand it, to the wisdom oered
by the Manicheans. Surprisingly few scholars have wondered about the
72)
181
77)
K. Vssing, Schule und Bildung im Nordafrika der Rmischen Kaiserzeit, Collection Latomus 238 (Brussels 1997) 400-404. However, as Vssing points out, there is no evidence
that in Africa philosophical teachers were supported by either the cities or the emperor.
This seems to indicate a rather low public standing of philosophy and its practitioners in
Roman Africa.
78)
Augustine, Confessions 5,6,11.
79)
I. Hadot, La formation dAugustin. Le cursus dtudes dAugustin et la question des
arts libraux, in: Eadem, Arts libraux et philosophie dans la pense antique (Paris 22005)
379-81.
80)
Augustine, Confessions 4,16,28.30.
182
Clearly, for Augustine, the libri Platonicorum (as he was to call these books
in the Confessions) contained a piece of very eective exhortation to a philosophical life. For Theodore, more than a hundred years before Augustine,
it was the eloquent presence of Origen himself that had achieved the conversion. Augustine relates his conversion with explicit protreptic intent:
He wants his addressee Romanianus also to convert to philosophy, to shed
his ties to the Manicheans and to retreat from a distracting law suit.
The reading of the Platonic books admonished Augustine to return to
himself and consequently alsoas he put itto the religion implanted in
us as boys, binding us from the marrow, to the only religion he knew. He
felt called to test his religion:
And so stumbling, hastening, hesitating I snatched up the Apostle Paul. Truly,
I declared, they (i.e. the apostles) would not have been able to do such great
deeds, nor would they have lived as they clearly did live, if their books and arguments were opposed to so great a good.
A lot of scholarly ink has been spilt on these few words. The proven asceticism and the missionary deeds of Paul and the other apostles encouraged
Augustine to interpret their writings in the light of the wisdom of Plotinus.
For Augustine, then, there was one transcendent and eternal truth to which
he was converted by the libri Platonicorum and with which the letters of
Paul did not disagree. It is Augustine, the curious reader, whocrossing
81)
Augustine, Contra Academicos 2,2,5 (here and in the following I use the translation of
P. King, Augustine: Against the Academicians and The Teacher [Indianopolis / Cambridge
1995] 29-31). I disagree with the interpretation proposed by T. Fuhrer, Augustin. Contra
Academicos (Berlin / New York 1997) 88-106.
183
boundariesin his mind combines Paul and Plotinus. Augustines intellectual patchwork reconstitutes ancient philosophys original project and
its unity of discourse and mode de vie.
Augustines conversion to the transcendent truth of philosophy was not
mediated by a philosophical master but by books.82 He read Cicero, Aristotle, Plotinus or Porphyry on his own, without exegetical help, outside
a school and its carefully constructed curriculum. Of course, in Milan
Augustine had met educated Christians with whom he could discuss his
Platonic readingthe importance of these intellectual contacts should not
be underrated.83
Converted and admonished by his reading of the Platonic books, Augustine
attempted the ascent to God well before he had made the rst step of every
serious course of philosophy, i.e. before he had begun to master his passions, to purify his soul. The masters of the Neoplatonic schools, a Iamblichus or Proclus, would probably have viewed this unconventional attempt
at climbing the summit of philosophical contemplation as an example of
do it yourself philosophy at its worst.
Moreover, the episode of Augustines conversion by the libri Platonicorum could alert us to the hazards of the transmission and reception of
ancient philosophy. Of course, Augustin could have learned from Origen
instead of Plotinus about the transcendent, incorporeal being of God. But
the texts of Christian philosophy of an earlier age, particularly the bulk of
the works of Origen, began to become available in translation only about
ten years later, through the labours of Runus and Jerome.84 In Milan, in
386, Augustine had access to this earlier tradition of Christian and Jewish
philosophy only through its refraction in the preaching of Ambrose who
drew copiously on Philo and Origen. Clearly, given the very fragility of
82)
See R. Lane Fox, Movers and Shakers, in: A. Smith (ed.), The Philosopher and Society in
Late Antiquity. Essays in Honour of Peter Brown (Swansea 2005) 19-50: 27-28.
83)
Perhaps Ambrose and certainly Manlius Theodorus (De beata vita 1,4) played a role in
alerting Augustine to the treatises of Plotinus. Simplician made Augustin see the harmony
between Neoplatonic philosophy and the prologue of the Gospel of John, see De Civitate
Dei 10,29,2. See P. Courcelle, Recherches sur les Confessions de Saint Augustin (Paris 21968)
93-138; 153-156; 168-174. See also S. Lancel, Saint Augustin (Paris 1999) 123-126 (with
bibliography).
84)
There is no need to endorse Gyrgi Heidls ingeniously argued claim that the libri mentioned in Contra Academicos 2,2,5 are Origens commentary on the Song of Songs, see his
Origens Inuence on the Young Augustine (Piscataway/ NJ 2007).
184
VI
Augustines intellectual biography is unique. But perhaps his peculiar kind
of engagementor non engagementwith the project of ancient philosophy has wider signicance. By the 4th century, the Christian schools of
philosophy began to disappear. In Rome, the schools probably did not
survive the 3rd century. In the East, apart from Didymus the Blind in
Alexandria (he commented not only biblical books but also Origens Peri
Archn),85 there were, of course, Aetios and Eunomios, the two so called
85)
According to a manuscript in Oxford, the Codex Baroccianus 142, fol. 216, the
4th century historian Philippus of Side constructed the diadoch of the Alexandrian
185
186
general decline in the social prestige of philosophical teaching. It is dicult to verify this hypothesis on the basis of the slender evidence so far
presented by Goulet.87 If he is right, however, the demise of the Christian
schools must be seen as part of a larger process. The Platonic schools in
Alexandria, Athens, Aphrodisias and elsewhere certainly survived and even
ourished. These schools found partly a new role as the guardians of the
cultural and religious heritage of Hellenism. Their heads often doubled as
priests in various cults.88
Whatever Christian bishops or zealous monks might wish or say, the
educated Christian laity, in so far as it was interested in philosophy at all,
continued to read Plato, Aristotle or Cicero or send their sons to the pagan
Platonic schools. In late 5th century Alexandria the lectures of the Platonic
philosopher Ammonios and his colleagues were also followed by Christian
students. Did Ammonios distinguish more clearly between philosophy
and theology, spiritual exercises and pagan cult observance? Was he perhaps forced to enter into an agreement with the Christian bishop Peter
Mongus which banned religious activities from his schools? Or was he
asked to drop controversial doctrines like the eternity of the world from
the curriculum of his school? These and other important questions are
discussed by the recent monograph of Edward J. Watts.89
VII
By way of conclusion two brief remarks:
1. Pierre Hadot has argued that it was the triumph of Christian philosophy that in eect sealed the fate of the original project of ancient
philosophy. I would like to suggest that an important element is
lacking in this narrative: The demise of the Christian schools of philosophy. In the 4th, 5th and 6th century, the impressive scholasticism of the late antique Platonic schools in Athens and Alexandria
found no Christian counterpart. No comparable Valentinian or Origenist scholasticism was established. Christian Philosophy had failed
87)
R. Goulet, Les intellectuels paiens dans lmpire Chrtien, in: Idem, tudes sur les Vies
des philosophes de lAntiquit tardive (Paris 2001) 373-386: 378-379.
88)
See P. Zanker, The mask of Socrates (note 12), 310-3111.
89)
City and School in Late Antique Athens and Alexandria (Berkeley / Los Angeles 2006).
187
90)
Somebut by no means all or even mostmonastic communities also had an intellectual life thatsometimes guided by the works of Origen and his followersfocussed on
the spiritual exegesis of scripture. But despite certain continuities between philosophical
schools and monastic communities and despite the monastic claim to practice a philosophikos bios the dierences should not be downplayed.
91)
See J. Marenbon, Boethius (Oxford 2003), 162. It is, of course, entirely plausible to
assume that already in the 2nd and 3rd centuries there must have been Christians who
taught, say, Aristotelian or Platonic, not Christian, philosophy. A certain Anatolius may
have been such a philosopher, see Eusebius, h.e.7,32,6. It is always wrong to conceive of the
intellectual life of any period as a teleological process with a single trajectory. Neither does
Late Antiquity oer the example of an inevitable and progressive Christianization of the
intellectual life, nor does the Modern Age present us with an inevitable and progressive
dissociation of Christianity and high intellectual endeavour. Rather, with the advent of
Christianity, new intellectual problems and congurations arose, and a novel interplay
between religion and philosophy.
188
A modern theologian may still come to the conclusion that the ancient
project of interpreting Christianity as a philosophy was ultimately a misconceived and impossible intellectual endeavour. Such a position could
cite ancient authorities, both pagan and Christian. But perhaps even modern theology may be inspired by the recognition that one of the origins of
early Christian theology is the intense philosophical search for the goal of
human life, for the full realization of humanity.
Copyright of Vigiliae Christianae is the property of Brill Academic Publishers and its content may not be
copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written
permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use.